Thoughts on my generation and war.

I wrote a thing on heroes for a reason. When I was growing up...Movies were our main source of entertainment...John Wayne, et al, were always storming a beach or cleaning up a town...the American way...bringing an end to injustice. The unjust slowly went from "just bad boys gone wrong" to hints of inhumanity as America starting losing their innocence. My generation grew up wanting to be the cowboy in the white hat riding in to save the day.

Back before WW II, we were accused of being isolationists..ignoring Europe's pain and just tending to our own.

After that, it seems we've been riding a lot and now we are the capitalist imperialists.

I personally don't want any war, anywhere again.

I was hot to jump into Viet Nam...too young at that time and full of my own life to really look at the long term. damaged Americans that came back from Korea. But, by God, those Communists were trying to spread again...(they did tend to try to spread, you know). I guess something about the water at home, I dunno.

But....planeloads and planeloads of my generation coming back in body bags....the ones who lived and truly fought out in those fields...scarred in so many ways...some physically....all mentally. A great majority of those "homeless" people you see under our bridges are Nam Vets..souls broken in myriad ways from what they saw and felt they had to do....to live under that bridge.

We just had just barely gotten our economic deficit under control.....and here we are again.

I don't want to war against any country. I want to stomp on the white hat and pour all our might and money into "assassins" and covert black ops. Take out the guys giving the orders, take the guys dealing the arms.

We were shattered by an enemy that does not fight as John Wayne.I think we should learn from that.

And one more thought...you say ......."Americans"...as if we were a people apart.

We have all your blood and cultures in us....all your religions....all your ethics....and all your dreams...not just a little....we are your grandfather's brothers and sisters..uncles and aunts.

Re: Thoughts on my generation and war.

I am from Melbourne, Aistralia. For those of you who do not know, that is under Sydney where the Olypic Games whre held on 2000.

In Australia we are lucky as we have had virtually no war here. We bombed once, but it wasn't anything to major. We ride on America and Europe's coat-tails to safety and wealth.

With all this we have still managed to destroy our Country. When the white people came to Australia they thought only of a quick solution to their problem of too many criminals.

Australia may brag and we may call ourselves priviliged but we are really a country of criminals. Those people who came here free then murdered thousands of native Aboriginals.

What do we have to be proud of?

Every country has made mistakes. at least America is trying to fix theirs. I must admit that America does seem to be looking for a short term solution for all their problems. President Bush seems to live by the "Ask forgivness not permission" theory.

Even if it is late America tries. In Australia we can't admit that we are wrong, or even apologise to the descendants of our murdered natives.

I realise that Jeanette, myself and maybe two or three others are the only people from Australia so I'll shut up now.

Re: Thoughts on my generation and war.

Australia Day is celebrated on the 26th of January and celebrates the first colony being settled in NSW. I refused to celebrate it. I mourned instead. For the Aborigines. This day, in 1788 (I think) was the day their land was officially stolen from them.

There was this pledge that was printed in newspapers and handed out in pamphlets to everyone that was to be said on Australia Day. I refused to say that too. It was crap. One of the lines said "We look to the future but do not forget the past". Well, I'm sure. It's more like a "look to the future and remember the past that doesn't include the Aboriginals". It's times like this when I'm ashamed to be an Aussie.

Check this out: It's a transcript of a news report. The Tent Embassy is on the lawn outside Old Parliament House in Canberra, "Old" meaning it's nothing but a tourist attraction now. It's not even functional.

Mel is too right. I think most of the people want to make things right, but with the leaders that we have it's...well shameful.

Re: Thoughts on my generation and war.

News Update: i don't know if you heard, but sometime this week the police came and took down the tent embassy!!! apparently it was unstable...i have not been the for a few years but when i was there it didn't look like it belonged on the cover of achitectural digest but it looked fine to me!!

i think the government thought it looked unseemly out the front of their nice, shiny parliament house. it survived the bush fires, surely it wasn't that bad. they tore down a piece of heritage, history culture. there is no excuse for that.

Just in case you didn't know

We went to war in vietnam to prevent democracy from occuring there because we didn't like the way it was going to turn out. If the people of vietnam wanted a communist government shouldn't they be able to have one? Who are we to tell them the type of government they must have?

Re: Just in case you didn't know

I'm actually studying the whole Cold War +Vietnam War thing in one of my subjects at school. I'm sort of still trying to figure out what's true and what isn't about the Gulf of Tonkin incident.

If the people of vietnam wanted a communist government shouldn't they be able to have one? Who are we to tell them the type of government they must have?

Too right. America said they stood for freedom and liberty, but at the same time they refused to sign a document that gave Vietnam the freedom to decide for themselves. Big contradiction! Knowing that is the key to passing my subject. That's why I felt I had to put it here.

Re: Just in case you didn't know

We went to war in vietnam to prevent democracy from occuring there because we didn't like the way it was going to turn out. If the people of vietnam wanted a communist government shouldn't they be able to have one? Who are we to tell them the type of government they must have?

And, isn't this going to happen in Iraq too? I feel sad at the way things have turned out in Iraq. Iraq was the only Muslim country in the middle-east where women did not need to cover all their body in burqas, that was the only place where people were allowed the listen to music and watch TV. People were allowed to study. Iraq had a very good education system unlike other Arab and Muslim states.

Yes, of course Saddam was bad, but now when the Iraqis form their own theoratical (Islamic) government, aren't we pushing things backwards? US has created another Taliban. I am pretty sure, if US fails to install their own puppet, and/or that puppet fails to control the people of that region, we might soon need another Iraq war. So, another decade from now, we might be having similar discussions.

And, if US doesn't allow the Iraqis to choose their own government, then they will be seen as oppressors and not as liberators, and people will keep on thinking that they are there for the Oil (which I believe they are there for, BTW). So, how is the US going to get out of this dilemma, and what is going to happen in that region of the world next?